Gender culture in the workplace among students on vocational training

The problem of gender inequality is to a large extent due to the survival of the traditional gender roles that society allocates to women and men respectively. The aim of the present study is therefore to identify the stereotypical beliefs presented by students on vocational training as regards gender equality in the workplace and check for the existence of possible significant differences depending on gender and course level studied (intermediate or advanced). To this end, the study relied on the voluntary participation of 135 students from an integrated public vocational training centre in the province of Alicante, all of whom completed the Gender-Role Attitudes Scale. The results showed that the participants as a whole presented an ambiguous stance as far as equality in the workplace is concerned, especially as regards the sexual division of labour. The Student’s t-test indicated that there were statistically significant differences depending on the level of training studied and, in particular, gender. Regarding the latter, it was the female students who most emphatically rejected the exclusion of women from positions of responsibility and occupational segregation. As for the level of training, students at advanced level showed attitudes more favourable to the presence of women in positions of power and a father’s involvement in bringing up children. Given these results, we believe there is a need to plan and implement actions aimed at deconstructing the sexist beliefs that students at this stage appear to show in the workpla